A. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to field of three dimensional modeling and animation. In particular, the invention relates to an improved three dimensional modeling and animation system having an object oriented architecture.
B. Related Art
Caching systems in computers allow a computer to store data that is likely to be reused in the near future. This generally improves the performance of a computer system. In 3D modeling systems, various caching schemes have been used. For example in some previous systems, images are cached as part of the normal data caching architecture of the computer system. For example, a portion of an image may be stored in a frame buffer or in a level 1 or level 2 cache. In other 3D modeling systems, basic caching techniques are used, such as keeping a portion of an image stored for redisplay when the user scrolls the image around the screen.
One problem with present caching systems is that they are not as high performance as is desired by users. Without optimized caching performance, a three dimensional modeling system can have severely limited performance. Therefore it is desirable to have an improved caching system for use in a three dimensional modeling system. In particular it is desirable to have an improved caching system for the display of the three dimensional model on the screen for the user.